Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Iran and the surge?

Some hardline posturing has been going on recently, which is making me think that the "surge" is also a message aimed at Iran. An assumption of hostilities with Iran changes all my reckoning with what is good strategy. Iraq in this case is just a huge training ground for possible Iran related operations. Therefore, the longer time and lots of troops just means they are better trained and battle-hardened for the next phase. Reminds me of a recent game of Caesar IV.

2 comments:

Dr Clam said...

I put a comment here a few hours ago but blogger et it- basically, what a sad waste of years we have had. A low-level konfrontasi-style campaign should have been mounted against Syria and Iran as soon as their meddling became apparent.

Marco Parigi said...

Maybe - but meddling is a weaker defence for a violent campaign than an emerging threat of nuclear terrorism. The deterrence value for breaking the Nuclear nonProliferation Treaty is also more valuable than jumping the gun. A credible (if veiled) threat of Iran being the next target of non-UN backed police work is necessary for the treaty to be of any value whatsoever.